Ten Minutes
by Canadino
Summary: Romano goes speed-dating. It does not go well. Bad Friends Trio/Romano, suggested Germany/Feli, modern!AU


**Disclaimer: The only thing I own is the story idea and only some of the witty remarks. I own so little; so please don't steal.**

Background music: -

[=]

Ten Minutes

"So," Feliciano chirped, grinning at Romano over the swirls of steam from the mocha in his hands, "how was speed-dating?"

The way Romano looked at him made Feliciano unconsciously tip his cup toward his brother; in the situation when his twin lunged at him, he could easily throw his coffee on him, scald him, and run to a safe house where he could hide for the next several days. But Romano did not reach across the coffeehouse table to strangle him. Feliciano took this as a good sign. He took a sip from the chocolate goodness in front of him.

"I am never taking your advice again, you stupid little brother."

Feliciano pouted. "It couldn't have been that bad," he insisted, quickly searching his mind for the articles he had read in the paper that morning. He hadn't remembered seeing anything about homicides at a local dating site. Maybe he hadn't read each inch of the paper that well. But at least he would have seen the cops if Romano had, wouldn't he? "I'm sure you met some really nice people!"

"The girls there were ugly," Romano scoffed, looking disinterestedly at the shortbread cookies Feliciano had bought between them. He took his coffee black with a shot of caramel syrup. It was too bitter for Feliciano. "And there were more guys than girls."

"Really?" Feliciano grinned over his cup. "I'm going to guess that you had to sit with them, huh."

"In their defense, they were the more interesting people among everyone else," Romano shrugged. "The women wanted to talk about long walks on the beach or cooking romantic dinners or the pros and cons of having cats over children. You know. Women stuff." The two sighed. They had had their share of dates that went horrendously wrong. The difference between the two was that Feliciano had not given up and kept looking for his significant other while Romano had called the whole farce off and had settled for badgering Feliciano's dates (a very bad thing).

"So tell me about these men!"

Romano sighed. Feliciano figured he had been utterly defeated by the scenarios last night or else he wouldn't have readily allowed himself to speak so freely. So far, he hadn't heard a word of profanity yet. It must have been quite a night. Feliciano decided to book a date with the speed dating organization as soon as possible. "Well, there were three of them, and none of them were very special to begin with. The first one was a real bastard…"

[=]

_Romano was hoping that the person across the table was a woman. A woman with very short hair. And a really flat chest. Who liked to wear men's clothing. Hell, and even looked like a man. _

"_Hey, baby, you're really cute."_

_Nope. _

"_We only got ten minutes, which is hardly enough time for you to get to know the awesome me. Not even a whole date could over the extent of my awesomeness. I should try and give you a condensed version. I haven't been able to do that all night. The timer always rings before I stop talking. The girls really like it though! They always talk to teach other afterwards and they give me interested looks. I'm not sure why they didn't come sit with the awesome me…so I ended up with a guy…but whatever. I'm Gilbert Beilschmidt and I'm the awesomest, most manly guy in this room. Hell, maybe the entire world."_

_Romano opened his mouth to try and get a word in but Gilbert the blabbermouth did not stop._

"_I know, I know, you're thinking, _wow, this guy is really cool and I want to go out with him_, but I think I should tell you more about myself. You must be wondering if this is natural." He pulled at his hair. "And let me tell you, hot stuff, that it is all natural. I was born with this awesome hair. You can touch it if you want."_

_Romano quickly shook his head. _

"_I do a lot of awesome stuff in my free time. Sometimes I play video games for hours. I used to write about my daily exploits in some awesome journals, but now I just blog. You want to read my blog? Here, I'll write it down for you." He pulled out a piece of paper and scribbled something Romano could not read out. "Everything I do is on that, and it's pretty awesome so I suggest you try not to read it all in one sitting. Or else you might be overwhelmed by my prowess as a human being."_

_There was a split second of silence, which Romano found rather refreshing before Gilbert kept going. "Wow, you haven't even tried to stop me yet! A lot of the women here haven't been able to handle my awesome so much that they've tried to stop me so they could take a breather. I've discovered that it's better to let it all out. Like ripping a bandage off a wound. Just get it all in one go. I'm impressed!" Romano wanted to say that he hadn't said anything because he thought it would be easier on himself to let it run its course but he had not gotten the chance to even open his mouth. "Tell you what; you should go out with me."_

_There was a pause longer than a moment and Romano realized he had been granted a chance to speak with the King of Awesome. "What?"_

"_Yeah, I know," Gilbert said, tossing his head. "It's not every day that a rich young handsome stud comes to sweep you off your feet. Don't you feel lucky?" _

"_You're a bit too young for me," Romano quickly interjected before Gilbert could continue lauding himself. The albino stopped, blinked, and unfurled the confident folded arms behind his head._

"_What do you mean?" he yelped, sounding as if he had just been trampled on by a bulldozer driven by a pack of elephants. "Too young? You hardly look older than me! Unless you're, like, fifty or something, in case that is just gross…"_

"_I meant as immaturity goes," Romano clarified, breathing a sigh of relief as the ding of the ten minute limit sounded, "you're practically three."_

[=]

"Then if that wasn't enough of a turn off," Romano grumbled, "his stupid blonde kraut of a brother came up to me as we were changing seats and I was afraid he wanted a turn but he just wanted to say he had overheard the whole conversation and would I please give Gilbert a chance because he had been cooped up in the house for so long and a lot of people were expecting him to find a girl to go out with. I told him to get lost but he kept saying his brother needed a date. So I just ran to the first empty seat I could find as the bell rang again, but as luck would have it, I had paired up with another freak."

[=]

_He had gotten away from that annoying blonde bastard and the albino idiot was now chatting up a poor ginger a couple tables away. It was worth it, even if he hadn't seen who he was partnered up with. He would have even taken ten minutes with a librarian to get away from those creeps. _

"_Hola!" The young man in front of him practically oozed exotic charm. From the accented English to the tan skin and curly locks, he didn't have to say anything for Romano to know he wasn't from the area. "It's nice to meet you! My name is Antonio Carriedo!"_

"_Oh great," Romano grumbled, turning so he was faced outward. Ten minutes wouldn't be long enough at this rate._

"_What?" Antonio said, sounding a little excited. "I'm your type?"_

"_What?" Romano sputtered and replaced its chin back in its stand on his fist. "No. Not even close. For starters, you don't have boobs."_

"_Oh." The idiot looked down at his chest. "I guess I don't."_

"_Yeah."_

"_That doesn't mean we can't be friends!" Antonio was the type to want to make things work. "Um…let's see. I graduated from university a couple years ago…I'm Spanish…I like to play the guitar…I can make all sorts of food…" Antonio trailed off for a moment and stared at Romano. "Say, you _are_ kind of cute."_

"_No. Don't even start."_

"_What? Why not?" Antonio shifted to read Romano's nametag, which was angled away from his face. "Romano, you _are_ at a speed date, so why don't you enjoy yourself a little?"_

"_Oh, yeah." Romano turned to Antonio. Saying nothing was not going to work like it did for Gilbert. "And what about you? You hardly look the type to not have a girlfriend. What are you doing at something like this?"_

"_That's true," Antonio agreed, which pissed Romano off. Bastard, practically bragging about his stupid popularity with the ladies. "I'm here because my friends wanted to come…well, actually, one friend; Francis and I are fine, I think, but Gilbert's having trouble finding a date…"_

"_You're friends with the motor mouth?" Romano gestured at Gilbert, who looked as if he were pleading with the ginger to keep sitting. "That doesn't give you much credit at all."_

"_He can be a nice guy," Antonio laughed. "He's really desperate, even if he doesn't show it."_

"_Oh, he shows it all right."_

_Romano realized he was actually getting along with Antonio. This freaked him out a bit. "Dammit, you're boring."_

"_Are you alright? Your face is red. You look like…oh, you look like a toma…!"_

[=]

Feliciano giggled. "Did you get his number?"

Romano looked affronted. "Why would I do that? It wasn't like he was interesting or anything. Anyway, the buzzer sounded but he looked like he wanted to keep talking to me so I had to escape again – and the blonde guy tried to talk to me again – so I had another narrow escape, and this time was not better at all."

[=]

"_Bonjour," said the smooth voice, like a practiced ladykiller. French. Romano could tell by the hair and the clothes and the attitude. "Francis Bonnefoy is at your service, my young sir. Have you been having a good time tonight?"_

"_No," Romano replied curtly, keeping his gaze away from the blue eyes trying to seduce him badly. He found Antonio talking to a shy brunette. He had a nice smile. She was very flustered. He was relieved he had not been flustered._

"_I'll get to the point," Francis interrupted, jolting Romano out of his thoughts. "At this point tonight, I don't need any more numbers." He gestured to his breast pocket, which was littered with small slips of papers. "I know I'm hot stuff – I'm French – and if you wanted to join these lovely ladies and gentlemen, I would not say no; but you would have to share with one or two other people, I am rather booked for the night…"_

"_You know Antonio?" Romano asked, before Francis could suggest any more lewd activities. He was afraid that was where the conversation was heading and he did not want to hear about potential orgies. He was a God-fearing man, for Christ's sake! Francis glanced to the table where Antonio was chuckling lightly with the young woman. _

"_We have been friends for a time," he agreed. "And if you wanted to know, I'd say you had a very good chance; he's interested in finding a nice brunette to go steady with and-"_

"_I never said I wanted to date him," Romano protested. "It's just that…!"_

"_I know; he's charming and sweet and a bit of an airheaded bumpkin. It works for him, I guess. I'm the seducer, he's the heart of gold, and Gilbert's the court jester. The trio works out, actually."_

"_No, it's just that I'm wondering why he is friends with someone like Gilbert…and you, after I think about it."_

_Francis laughed. "I know, right. We all don't really click but we help each other out, so it's more about what we can do for each other, not what we like about each other, you know what I mean?"_

"_What a waste of time," Romano grumbled._

"_You know, if you were interested…I could ask Antonio along and we could all have a good time…"_

[=]

"So what happened?"

"What happened, stupid little brother, is that I tried to leave early but before I could actually get out of there, the German brother stopped me to give his information and to consider Gilbert some more, Antonio gave me his number and asked me to call him, and the pervert stubble had the coordinator of the event drop me a card with his address on it."

"Well!" Feliciano clapped his hands together. "All in all, a successful night, wouldn't you say?"

"No. It wasn't. There is no way you could construct it that way. I didn't get any girl's number, I was hit on by some unattractive people, and I got a flat tire on my way home. It was a terrible night."

"Antonio didn't sound like too bad of a guy," Feliciano pouted, crumbling the rest of the shortcake in his fingers. "Did you call him yet?"

"No, and I'm not going to."

"You should."

"No, I shouldn't."

"Excuse me…Romano Vargas, right?" The two looked up to see a tall, well-built man standing over them. He had good posture and the looks of a man who started his day with a couple of pull-ups and celery sticks. While Romano cringed with distaste, Feliciano blinked the sparkles out of his eyes. "I don't know if you remember me, but I'm Ludwig, Gilbert's brother."

"Yes, I remember you…sadly. Tell your fucking jerk of a brother to not get his hopes up. I told him and you no at least three times yesterday."

"I am not sure how to say this in a better way. But Gilbert needs to get out of the house. He has been bothering the neighbors and he is hitting on our roommate's wife. She is within the means of beating his brains out with her frying pan. He is a nice guy (if he doesn't drink) and…"

"Ludwig?" Feliciano had a dreamy look in his eyes Romano did not like in the slightest. "You were at the speed dating thing…did you find anyone you liked?"

Ludwig turned to Feliciano. "I was there for my brother. I am ashamed to admit that I did not give my full attention to the people I was meeting." He looked a little confused at Feliciano's lackadaisical grin at him. "Romano, please keep thinking about it."

"No. And you can tell your brother to fuck off."

Pretending not to hear, Ludwig proceeded to repeat his request for Romano to reconsider before nodding at Feliciano and walking away. Romano followed him with a steely glare. "See what I mean? Three times, last night! How annoying can you goddamn get?"

"Well…I mean…can we talk about this another time? I just…remembered…I have something to…" Feliciano didn't even bother to finish his badly constructed excuse before abruptly standing up and scampering to catch up with Ludwig. Romano watched with disgust before taking the last piece of shortbread for himself.

Owari

[=]

Note: My friend called me out to tell me she had gotten three proposals over the weekend. We discussed this and as I drove home, this appeared in my mind. H, although I love you to death, this was too funny and had to be construed into a fanfiction. What better way than to add speed-dating and the Bad Ass Trio? I don't know. Thanks for reading!


End file.
